The Kenya Union of Clinical Officers now wants the ministry of Health to ensure that 1,848 interns are posted in the next 14 days.
The interns were due to be posted in December 2022 but the union says despite there being a budget for the same, their fate remains unclear.
“Of great concern is the fact that we have seen other interns being posted without any communication on when the remaining interns are to be posted,” KUCO secretary general George Gibore said.
KUCO chairperson Peterson Wachira said the government is not giving healthcare and the health sector the priority it deserves as a function of national interest.
He said the ministry is supposed to post clinical officer interns as a legal provision since it's a prerequisite for them to be licensed to practice.
“This happens every year and budget has been set aside by Parliament for that purpose. These interns have been at home for more than eight months,” Wachira said.
“We have no communication as to when they are supposed to be posted yet we have seen that others have been posted. This discrimination must end, whatever is good for one must also be given to the other one,” he added.
The union has been rattled by the move by the ministry to post medical interns early this month to various public health facilities after the doctors union issued a strike notice.
They begun posting the first batch of 874 medical interns as part of the commitments made by the ministry to avert a doctors’ strike that was supposed to begin on January 6.
The directive by the Health CS Susan Wafula came after a series of meetings with the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists and Pharmacists’ Union, the ministry and the Council of Governors.
The clinicians now want the ministry to come clean on when the posting for other cadres will commence.
They have issued a 14-day ultimatum failure to which they will hold demos and present petitions to the relevant offices.
“The same happens when it comes to payments, you find that some interns are paid as per job groups while others are given a meager stipend which cannot sustain their basic needs when on internship.”
Doctors had threatened to withdraw their services if their demands in the 2017-2021 CBA remained unmet.
But a series of meetings saw the union shelve their plan in an effort to strike a balance as the negotiations continued.
